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"The poem, for me, is simply the first sound realized in the modality of being."

Charles Olson, American Poet

Being, First, Sound

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"The poem, for me, is simply the first sound realized in the modality of being."

Exlpore more Being quotes

"The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible."

Vladimir Nabokov, American Novelist

Being, Feeling, Words

"You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself."

Ernest Hemingway, American Novelist

Being, Opponents

"There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world."

Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish Writer

Being, Benefits, Duty, World

"Being a blockhead is sometimes the best security against being cheated by a man of wit."

Francois de La Rochefoucauld, French Writer

Being, Man, Security, Wit

"It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal."

George Eliot, British Author

Being, Man, Woman

"And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness."

T. S. Eliot, American Poet

"There is more pleasure in loving than in being beloved."

Thomas Fuller, English Clergyman

Being, Pleasure

"The secret of being a bore... is to tell everything."

Voltaire, French Writer

"No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence."

Thomas Carlyle, Scottish Philosopher

Being, Giving, Man, World

"Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German Poet

Being, Nothing, Respect

Explore more quotes by Charles Olson

"The heroes of the present will retreat to the imitation they are anyhow."

"This morning of the small snow I count the blessings, the leak in the faucet which makes of the sink time, the drop of the water on water."

"I defer to all these other American poets who, for some reason, I both envy and admire."

"I sound like Homer. I mean Winslow Homer."

"This country has been unconscious, and it's got to awake. That's my belief."

"You can read everybody. It's not even interesting to tell the truth because to some extent it's false."

"I'm trying to climb up both walls at once."

"There is a grace of life which is still yours, my dear Europe."

"I don't live for poetry. I live far more than anybody else does."

"Forgive me if I sleep until I wake up."

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